Chattanooga Pulse

Unless you’re involved in the theatre process, either personally or as a parent proxy, you probably don’t know a lot about what needs to happen to create a show. I’m currently directing and producing the version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night opening Friday on the Main Stage at the Chattanooga Theatre Centre. (Shameless plug now out of the way.)

A production like this often starts with a meandering thought, “What would be a good show to do at this time of year? What about Twelfth Night?” Shakespeare almost undoubtedly wrote the play for presentation on the twelfth day of Christmas, so this was the pick. And as it happened, we had already done a public reading of the play and I had some strong ideas about casting.

George Quick, the CTC’s producing director, was amenable to the idea of our doing the show during the brief period before the CTC’s own season kicks in, just as we had done with The Othello Project two years ago.

That was the easy part.

I had never done Twelfth Night, so my first stop was with that mad, misogynist genius Harold Bloom and his classic book, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.  “Everyone in Twelfth Night is wacko,” says Harold (I’m paraphrasing.) “Also, I have never seen a production that whizzes along fast enough.” (More paraphrasing.) He goes on to talk about the concept I was intrigued by: Order vs. Chaos.

In the world of Twelfth Night characters, some are on side of order and some, most, are on the side of chaos. The play explores what happens when too-rigidly “ordered” people come up against completely “chaotic” people—all within the confines of some serious slapstick. Twelfth Night was Shakespeare’s last major comedy and there are darker themes. How to access these without overwhelming the comedy? H’mm…

On to auditions and casting. Here we struck it lucky…very lucky. Any director will tell you that a show can stand or fall on casting. Shakespeare Chattanooga practices color-blind and gender-blind casting, and in this case, I added age-blind casting as well. Some of the traditional relationships are turned on their heads in this cast, as some characters are younger, and some older, than is usually played. During auditions, we fooled around a lot. “Do the scene as if you were in a telanovela.” “What if your character was Foghorn Leghorn?” None of this Shaaakespe-uh stuff. Shakespeare himself would not have recognized Shaaakespe-uh.

Out of this process, and some subsequent casting, came Kim Jackson as Viola, Robert Bass as Orsino, E’tienne Easley as Olivia, Jonathan Nichols as Sebastian, Steven Disbrow as Malvolio, Tom Conway as Sir Toby Belch, Carlene Conway as Maria, Dakota Brown as Feste, Luke LaGraff as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Dylan Kussman as Antonio, Stephanie Smith as Fabian, Andrew Miller as Curio/First Officer, Amber Brown as Valentine, Rodney Strong as Captain/Priest, Judy LaMance as Second Officer, and Kate Conway as Servant. I am highly honored to be working with this insanely talented group.

Rehearsals began at the end of October with table reads and text work. What’s the difference between blank verse and prose? Why does Shakespeare use them when he does? And is that line as obscene as it seems to be? (Usual answer: Yes.)

We talk about breath…the pros mark every place where they breathe. We warm up. I make them do yoga stretches and tongue twisters. They bring in their own warm ups, too, and we stand in a circle and make faces, or walk in a circle, watching each other warily for changes, or dance in a darkened room as the crazy director has become enamored of a Beatles song.

We begin to find the people in the play. What do they want? What was their history before the play begins? What was your character doing before he walked into this scene? Always more questions.

Stephanie, music director, begins to bring in some of the music, which by design is all over the map. I meet with Paul Hartmann, lighting and set designer, and brainstorm on some simple concepts we have. Simplicity is our watchword in design, partly by choice and partly because we have no money. I get a kooky idea about the swords and find some art partners in crime to create them.

Right now, we are still dancing, asking questions, trying to get the cues right and finding this play. We hope, if you choose to come and see it, that you’ll see some funny and provocative results of our exploration. If you do—it’s all worth it.

Twelfth Night
Presented by Shakespeare Chattanooga in partnership with the Chattanooga Theatre Centre
$15 ($10 students/seniors)
8 p.m. January 8, 9.
2:30 p.m. January 10
Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Main Stage,
400 River Street. (423) 267-8534.
www.theatrecentre.com